Q&A with Salmonella Dub

Are your family and friends okay after the recent earthquakes?
Christchurch is our hometown. We lost mates, family properties and a lot of precious memories. It will never be the same.

How has the experience affected you personally?
I cried many times, especially when the Mac (computer) retailer was pulled out of the rubble of his building. He sold us our first Mac 12 years ago after a native forest action fundraiser.

Have any new songs been inspired by the experience?
We tend to write tracks, songs/vocals come later. The earthquakes are continuing and we will talk about them.

Being from a small South Island city, how did you get into dub music?
We were teenagers through the early ’80’s punk era. We also played in orchestras, big band jazz groups, punk-funk, speed metal bands, drum ‘n’ bass and hip hop outfits. All this led back to roots.

A stripped-back version of Salmonella Dub is currently touring Australia...
We will come with a new mash-up of past and present tracks for this DJ tour, and we’re working on new live visual footage for the full band tour in October.

Did Salmonella Dub pave the way for the current wave of New Zealand dub/roots/ reggae bands?
On the South Island we are very detached from most other bands, and although we have helped many, we don’t necessarily feel a part of a collective journey.

Why is the band named after a bacterium?
Salmonella is a food poison I highly recommend as character building. Dub was the style we chose to do “bad taste” covers in back in the early ’90s.